Parks partners with BES, Metro to buy 20-acre site for future park in East Portland
- February 25, 2011

We're excited to share that Parks, in partnership with Metro and the City's Bureau of Environmental Services (BES), has purchased 20 acres of land in the Argay-Wilkes neighborhood to be developed as a future park. Four acres will be a park for the neighborhood, which has long been underserved in terms of park facilities, and 16 will be a natural area.

We know that East Portland doesn't have the quantity or quality of parks the rest of the city enjoys. We're working to change that. Through our recently-launched E205 initiative, we're working to bring high-quality parks and natural areas to East Portland.

This purchase is a major step forward in our effort, and it also brings us closer to meeting the Parks 2020 Vision goal of making sure every Portlander is within half a mile of a great park.

The Argay-Wilkes site is also ecologically-important. It contains the headwaters of Wilkes Creek, part of the Columbia Slough watershed and the only remaining free-flowing creek to the slough. Headwaters like this are extremely high-value natural areas, and protecting this site is a victory for BES' Grey to Green program, which works to protect natural areas that are critical to the health of our watershed.

Our next step is to work with the community to develop a master plan for the site - stay tuned!